I Capture the Castle

by Dodie Smith

I have rarely heard such rain as there was during the meal. I am never happy when the elements go to extremes; I don’t think I am frightened, but I imagine the poor countryside being battered until I end by feeling battered myself. Rose is just the opposite—it is as if she is egging the weather on, wanting louder claps of thunder and positively encouraging forked lightning. She went to the door while it was raining and reported that the garden was completely flooded.

  “The lane’ll be like a river,” she remarked with satisfaction, not being a girl to remember that Thomas would have to ride his bicycle down it within an hour—he was staying late at school for a lecture.

  Father said:

  “Let me add to your simple pleasure in Nature’s violence by reminding you that there will shortly be at least six glorious new leaks in our roof.”

  There was one in the kitchen already; Stephen put a bucket under it. I told him the two attic leaks had started before I came down but there were buckets under them. He went to see if they were overflowing and returned to say that there were four more leaks. We had run out of buckets so he collected three saucepans and the soup-tureen. “Maybe I’d best stay up there and empty them as they fill,” he said. He took a book and some candle-ends and I thought how gloomy it would be for him reading poetry in the middle of six drips.

  We washed the tea-things; then Rose and Topaz went to the wash-house to shake out the dyed sheets. Father stayed by the fire, waiting for the rain to stop before going back to the gatehouse. He sat very still, just staring in front of him. It struck me how completely out of touch with him I am. I went over and sat on the fender and talked about the weather; and then realized that I was making conversation as if to a stranger. It depressed me so much that I couldn’t think of anything more to say. After a few minutes’ silence, he said:

  “So Stephen got work at Four Stones.”

  I just nodded and he looked at me rather queerly and asked if I liked Stephen. I said that of course I did, though the poems were embarrassing.

  “You should tell him you know he copies them,” said Father.

  “You’ll know how to do it-encourage him to write something of his own, however bad it is. And be very matter of fact with him, my child—even a bit on the brisk side.”

  “But I don’t think he’d like that,” I said.

  “I

  think he’d take briskness for snubbing. And you know how fond of me he’s always been.”

  “Hence the need for a little briskness,” said Father.

  “Unless …. Of course, he’s a godlike youth. I’m rather glad he’s not devoted to Rose,” I must have been looking very much puzzled. He smiled and went on: “Oh, don’t bother your head about it.

  You’ve so much common sense you’ll probably do the right thing instinctively. It’s no use telling Topaz to advise you because she’d think it all very splendid and natural—and for all I know, it might be. God knows what’s to become of you girls.”

  I suddenly knew what he was talking about.

  “I understand,” I said, “and I’ll be brisk-within reason.”

  But I wonder if I shall ever manage it. And I wonder if it is really necessary—surely Stephen’s devotion isn’t anything serious or grownup? But now that the idea has been put into my head, I keep remembering how queer his voice sounded when he asked me about being hungry. It is worrying—but rather exciting… I shall stop thinking about it; such things are not in my line at all. They are very much in Rose’s line and I know just what Father meant when he said he was glad Stephen wasn’t devoted to her. Topaz came from the wash-house and set irons to heat, so Father changed the subject by asking me if I’d dyed all my clothes green. I said I had few to dye.

  “Any long dresses at all?” he asked.

  “Nary a one,” I replied; and, indeed, I cannot see the slightest chance of ever acquiring grownup clothes.

  “But my school gym-dress has a lot of life in it yet and it’s very comfortable.”

  “I must alter something of mine for her,” said Topaz as she went back to the wash-house. I felt my lack of clothes was a reflection on Father and, in an effort to talk of something else, said the most tactless thing possible.

  “How’s the work?” I asked.

  A closed-up look came over his face and he said shortly: “You’re too old to believe in fairy tales.”

  I knew I had put my foot in it and thought I might as well go a bit further.

  “Honestly, Father-aren’t you trying to write at all?”

  “My dear Cassandra,” he said in a cutting voice he very seldom uses, “it’s time this legend that I’m a writer ceased. You won’t get any coming-out dresses from my earnings.”

  He got up without another word and went upstairs. I could have kicked myself for wrecking the first talk we’d had for months.

  Thomas came in just then, wet through. I warned him not to use Father’s bedroom as a passage, as we usually do, and he went up the front way. I took him some dry underclothes—fortunately the week’s ironing was done—and then went up to see how Stephen was getting on.

  He had stuck the candle-ends on the floor, close to his open book, and was reading lying on his stomach.

  His face was dazzlingly bright in the great dark attic — I stood a moment watching his lips moving before he heard me. The saucepans were on the point of overflowing. As I helped him to empty them out of the window I saw that the lamp was lit in the gatehouse, so Father must have gone back there through the rain. It was slackening off at last. The air smelt very fresh. I leaned out over the garden and found it was much warmer than indoors—it always takes our house a while to realize a change in the weather.

  “It’ll be spring for you soon, Miss Cassandra,” said Stephen. We stood sniffing the air.

  “There’s quite a bit of softness in it, isn’t there?” I said.

  “I shall think of this as spring rain -or am I cheating his You know I always try to begin the spring too soon.”

  He leaned out and took a deep sniff.

  “It’s beginning all right, Miss Cassandra,” he said.

  “Maybe we’ll get some setbacks but it’s beginning.” He suddenly smiled, not at me but looking straight in front of him, and added:

  “Well, beginnings are good times.” Then he closed the window and we put the saucepans back under the drips, which played a little ringing tune now that the saucepans were empty. The candle-ends on the floor cast the strangest shadows and made him seem enormously tall. I remembered what Father had said about his being a godlike youth; and then I remembered that I had not remembered to be brisk.

  We went back to the kitchen and I got Thomas some food.

  Topaz was ironing her silk tea-gown, which looked wonderful-it had been a faded blue, but had dyed a queer sea-green color.

  I think the sight of it made Rose extra gloomy. She was starting to iron a cotton frock that hadn’t dyed any too well.

  “Oh, what’s the use of messing about with summer clothes, anyway,” she said.

  “I can’t imagine it ever being warm again.”

  “There’s quite a bit of spring in the air tonight,” I told her.

  “You go out and smell it.”

  Rose never gets emotional about the seasons so she took no notice, but Topaz went to the door at once and flung it open. Then she threw her head back, opened her arms wide and took a giant breath.

  “It’s only a whiff of spring, not whole lungs full,” I said, but she was too rapt to listen. I quite expected her to plunge into the night, but after some more deep breathing she went upstairs to try on her tea-gown.

  “It beats me,” said Rose.

  “After all this time, I still don’t know if she goes on that way because she really feels like it, if she’s acting to impress us, or just acting to impress herself.”

  “All three,” I said.

  “And as it helps her to enjoy life, I don’t blame her.”

  Rose went to close the door and stood there a minute, but the nigh
t air didn’t cheer her up at all. She slammed the door and said: “If I knew anything desperate to do, I’d do it.”

  “What’s specially the matter with you, Rose?”

  asked Thomas.

  “You’ve been beating your breast for days and it’s very boring. We can at least get a laugh out of Topaz, but you’re just monotonously grim.”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” said Rose.

  “I feel grim. I haven’t any clothes, I haven’t any prospects. I live in a moldering ruin and I’ve nothing to look forward to but old age.”

  “Well, that’s been the outlook for years,” said Thomas.

  “Why has it suddenly got you down?”

  “It’s the long, cold winter,” I suggested.

  “It’s the long, cold winter of my life,” said Rose, at which Thomas laughed so much that he choked.

  Rose had the sense to laugh a little herself. She came and sat on the table, looking a bit less glowering.

  “Stephen,” she said, “you go to church. Do they still believe in the Devil there?”

  “Some do,” said Stephen, “though I wouldn’t say the Vicar did.”

  “The Devil’s out of fashion,” I said.

  “Then he might be flattered if I believed in him, and work extra hard for me. I’ll sell him my soul like Faust did.”

  “Faust sold his soul to get his youth back,” said Thomas.

  “Then I’ll sell mine to live my youth while I’ve still got it,” said Rose. “Will he hear me if I shout, or do I have to find a Devil’s Dyke or Devil’s Well or something?”

  “You could try wishing on our gargoyle,” I suggested. Although she was so desperate, she was—well, more playful than I had seen her for a long time and I wanted to encourage her.

  “Get me the ladder, Stephen,” she said.

  What we call our gargoyle is really just a carved stone head high above the kitchen fireplace. Father thinks the castle chapel was up there, because there are some bits of fluted stonework and a niche that might have been for holy water. The old wall has been white washed so often that the outlines are blurred now.

  “The ladder wouldn’t reach, Miss Rose,” said Stephen, “and the Vicar says that’s the head of an angel.”

  “Well, it’s got a devilish expression now,” said Rose, “and the Devil was a fallen angel.”

  We all stared up at the head and it did look a bit devilish;

  its curls had been broken and the bits that were left were horns.

  “Perhaps it would be extra potent if you wished on an angel and thought of the Devil,” I suggested, “like witches saying mass backwards.”

  “We could haul you up on the drying-rack, Rose,” said Thomas.

  The rack was pulled up high with the dyed sheets on it. Rose told Stephen to let it down, but he looked at me to see if I wanted him to.

  She frowned and went to the pulley herself. I said:

  “If you must fool about with it, let me get the sheets off first.”

  So she lowered them and Stephen helped me to drape them over two clothes-horses. Thomas held the rope while she sat on the middle of the rack and tested its strength.

  “The rack’ll bear you,” said Stephen.

  “I helped make it and it’s very strong. I don’t know about the rope and pulleys.” I went and sat beside her, feeling that if the weight of both of us didn’t break anything it would be safe for her alone. I knew from the look in her eye and her deep flush that it wasn’t any use trying to dissuade her. We bounced about a bit and then she said:

  “Good enough. Pull me up.”

  Stephen went to help Thomas.

  “But not you, Miss Cassandra,” he said, “it’s dangerous.”

  “I suppose you don’t mind me breaking my neck,” said Rose.

  “Well, I’d rather you didn’t,” said Stephen, “but I know you wouldn’t stop for the asking. Anyway, it’s you who want to wish on the angel, not Miss Cassandra.”

  I’d have been glad to wish on anything, but I wouldn’t have gone up there for a pension.

  “It’s a devil, not an angel, I tell you,” said Rose. She sat swinging her legs a minute, then looked round at us all.

  “Does anyone dare me?”

  “No!” we all shouted, which must have been very irritating. She said: “Then I dare myself. Haul me up.”

  Thomas and Stephen hauled. When she was about ten feet from the floor, I asked them to stop a minute.

  “How does it feel, Rose?” I said.

  “Peculiar, but a nice change. Go on, boys.”

  They pulled again. The carved head must be over twenty feet up and as she rose higher and higher I had an awful feeling in my stomach—I don’t think I had realized until then how very dangerous it was. When she was within a few feet of the head, Stephen called up: “That’s as high as the rack’ll go.”

  She reached up but couldn’t touch the head. Then she called down: “There’s a foothold here—it looks as if there were steps once.”

  The next second she had leaned forward, grasped a projecting stone and stepped on to the wall. The lamp on the table didn’t throw much light up there, but it looked terribly dangerous to me.

  “Hurry up and get it over,” I called. The backs of my legs as well as my stomach were most uncomfortable.

  She only had to take one step up the wall to reach the head.

  “He’s no beauty at close quarters,” she said.

  “What shall I say to him, Cassandra?”

  “Pat him on the head,” I suggested.

  “It must be hundreds of years since anyone showed him any affection.”

  Rose patted him. I got the lamp and held it high, but it was still shadowy up there. She looked extraordinary, almost as if she were flying up the wall or had been painted on it. I called out:

  Heavenly devil or devilish saint, Grant our vish, hear our plaint.

  Godsend Castle a godsend craves-and then I got stuck.

  “If he’s a devil, it can only be a devil send said Thomas. Just then a car on the Godsend road hooted loudly and he added:

  “There’s Old Nick come for you.”

  I saw Rose start.

  “Get me down!” she cried in a queer voice and flopped on to the rack. For one awful second I feared the boys might not be expecting the strain, but they were ready and lowered her carefully. As soon as her feet were near the ground she jumped off and sat down on the floor.

  “The car horn startled me,” she said rather shakily, “and I looked down and went giddy.”

  I asked her to describe her exact feelings up there, but she said she hadn’t had any until she turned giddy. That is one great difference between us: I would have had any number of feelings and have wanted to remember them all; she would just be thinking of wishing on the stone head.

  “You never did wish, did you?” I asked. She laughed.

  “Oh, I said a few private things all right.”

  Topaz came downstairs just then, in her black oilskins, sou’wester hat and rubber boots, looking as if she were going to man the life boat. She said her dyed tea-gown had shrunk so much that she couldn’t breathe in it and Rose could have it. Then she strode out, leaving the door wide open.

  “Don’t swallow the night, will you?” Thomas called after her.

  “Your luck’s started already,” I told Rose, as she dashed upstairs to try the tea-gown on. Thomas went to do his homework in his room, so I thought I might as well start my bath and asked Stephen if he minded me having it in the kitchen; I generally do have it there but, as it means he has to keep out of the way for a good long time, I always feel apologetic. He tactfully said he had a job to do in the barn and that he would help me get the bath ready.

  “But it’s still full of dye,” I remembered. We emptied it and Stephen swilled it out.

  “But I’m afraid the dye may still come off on you, Miss Cassandra,” he said.

  “Hadn’t you better use the bathroom?”

  The bat
hroom bath is so enormous that there is never enough hot water for more than a few inches, and a draught blows down the tower. I decided I would rather risk the dye. We carried the bath to the fire and Stephen baled hot water from the copper and helped me to make a screen of clothes-horses with the green sheets on-as a rule, I use dust-sheets for this. As our clothes-horses are fully five feet high, I always have a most respectable and private bath, but I do feel more comfortable if I have the whole kitchen to myself.

  “What will you have to read tonight, Miss Cassandra?”

  asked Stephen. I told him Vol. H To I of our old Encyclopedia, Man and Superman (which I have just re-borrowed from the Vicar-I feel I may have missed some of the finer points when I first read it five years ago) and last week’s Home Chat, kindly lent by Miss Marcy. I like plenty of choice in my bath. Stephen set them all out for me while I collected my washing things. And then, after he had lit his lantern to go to the barn, he suddenly presented me with a whole twopenny bar of nut-milk chocolate.

  “How did you come by that?” I gasped.

  He explained that he had got it on credit, on the strength of having a job.

  “I know you like to eat in the bath, Miss Cassandra.

  What with books and chocolate, there’s not much else you could have in it, is there his Except, perhaps, a wireless.”

  “Well, don’t go getting a wireless on credit,” I laughed; and then thanked him for the chocolate and offered him some.

  But he wouldn’t take any and went off to the barn.

  I was just getting into the bath when Heloise whined at the back door and had to be let in. Of course she wanted to come to the fire, which was a slight bore as she is no asset to a bath -her loving paws are apt to scrape one painfully. However, she seemed sleepy and we settled down amicably.

  It was wonderfully cozy inside my tall, draught-proof screen; and the rosy glow from the fire turned the green sheets to a fascinating color. I had the brain wave of sitting on our largest dinner-dish to avoid the dye; the gravy runnels were a bit uncomfortable, though.

  I believe it is customary to get one’s washing over first in baths and bask afterwards; personally, I bask first. I have discovered that the first few minutes are the best and not to be wasted-my brain always seethes with ideas and life suddenly looks much better than it did. Father says hot water can be as stimulating as an alcoholic drink and though I never come by one—unless the medicine-bottle of port that the Vicar gives me for my Midsummer rites counts-I can well believe it. So I bask first, wash second and then read as long as the hot water holds out. The last stage of a bath, when the water is cooling and there is nothing to look forward to, can be pretty disillusioning. I expect alcohol works much the same way.